If you see Kris Kristofferson around, please tell him thanks for writing the line, "freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose" in his song "Me and Bobby McGee." That thought is sage, and very appropriate for America in the year 2013.

In California, Governor Jerry Brown has signed into law an astounding 876 new mandates. They all took effect last week. Now in the Golden State you cannot do the following:

- Hunt a bear using trained dogs. Untrained canines are okay, I guess. And how would the authorities be able to tell? Would the dog have to take a test in the forest?

- Sit in an off road vehicle without being in a seat. You can't sit on the floor. Or on the roof. Do off road vehicles even have roofs? I don't know.

- Use a boat in a "freshwater body" without paying a separate fee. That's to raise money to control the influx of "invasive mussels." I thought that was a 1950s monster movie.

- Drive a party bus without a special license. Can't wait to see that test. Do you know the words to "Celebrate" by Kool and the Gang?

The list of new laws is almost endless, and it is clear that Governor Brown and the California legislature have been very busy thinking up ways to control every aspect of people's lives. And that's what's basically happening throughout this country. Politicians, some of them well-meaning, are trying to legislate everything.

New York's Mayor Bloomberg doesn't want us to be chubby, so he's trying to ban soft drinks in large cups. If a child rides his bike, he often looks like a Roman Gladiator with all the protective gear. Drive through a yellow light, and you may be ticketed thanks to a camera tied onto a pole. Everybody's watching everything. And then sending it out to the world via email.

The more laws that governments pass, the less individual freedom there is. Any student of history will tell you that. Totalitarian countries ban pretty much everything. The Taliban whipped people in public for dancing. Mao would execute you for saying a prayer. Hitler would send you to a concentrate camp if he thought you were gay.

We Americans need to stop this nanny state stuff. Reasonable protections are fine. It should be a crime to text while driving. But in California it is now against the law to park at a broken meter for more time than you could if said meter were working. I can just see the cops standing there with a stopwatch.

I consider myself a law-abiding person. But I'm exhausted. I don't know where to put the bottles, newspapers, cans, and other stuff for garbage pickup outside my house. The rules are so thick you need someone from M.I.T. to explain them.

So here's my pitch to Jerry Brown and other elected officials. Relax. The bears will be fine. The mussels will invade no matter what you do. The parking meter deal isn't important.

So far in Calif, you can still name you kid whatever you want. There are a disproportionate number of celebrities who live there, and who have a peculiar predisposition to name their kids weird shit like "Dweezil", and "Kal-El" . So, that would be a big problem for them if they got real uptight like Iceland, where your child's name must be from a relatively short Gov-approved list.

I feel sorriest for the youngsters who have to grow up in this brave new world. The government cocoon is tightening up, so warm, so comfortable, so well insulated against harsh realities. I am sorry that they won't have the wide range of opportunities that I did. Nor will they get the chance to get their asses well and truly kicked, as I did. Everything good I have came as a result of overcoming something, of fighting through, of persevering, of coming so damn close to a bad end....and all without a net. In ten or twenty years it'll be so comfortable to fail that, well, there won't be a reason not to. I wish that our leaders would understand that great achievement comes not from a position of safety and comfort but in the sweaty and dangerous world of risk and reward.